Me, My Father, His Father, and the Father Before

Parents

My parents were Matthew Robert Kohn (1901-1971) from the farm area 9 miles southwest of Tipton KS and Louise Josephine Deneke-Kohn (1913-1990) from a farm east of Beloit KS. They married on my mother's 34th birthday, 1947.02.13—Dad was then 46 years old. The witnesses to their marriage at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church were her brother Leo Deneke and friend Margaret M. Heger, both of Beloit. The officiant was Monsignor William J Butzer.

Math Kohn (1901-1971) in 1942

Before they met, Dad lived and worked on his parents' farm about 9 miles southwest of Tipton (the southwest quarter of section 33 (T8S R11W) or section 8-south (T9S R11W), in Bloom township, Osborne county KS). It's not clear to me if the farm was only ranch land, but the homestead was at the eastern end of about 300 acres of hilly and rocky pasture land, on which grazed a hundred or so cattle. It seems likely that the family rented other land for feed crops (alfalfa, milo, sorghum, and other small grains) to sustain the cattle during the winter.

Although Dad was already 40 years old by Pearl Harbor, he was still not exempt from the peacetime draft that was enacted in 1940. He enlisted or was drafted on 4 November 1942, and he was inducted into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Fort Benning GA. However, he served only four months and was discharged on 5 March 1943 from Fort Belvoir VA. I believe that the short enlistment resulted from a change in the age range for conscription from 21 through 45 to 18 through 38, which became effective after December 5, 1942. Dad returned to Kansas and took a job as a mechanic at Voss Motors in Downs.

Louise Deneke-Kohn (1913-1990) in 1939

Meanwhile, Mom saw her oldest sister Mary Agnes marry Peter Braun of Tipton in 1931 and die in childbirth in 1936. Her brother Pete married Nora Long of New Almelo KS in 1938 and began growing his family to four children by 1946. Her next-younger sister Cecilia entered the novitiate in 1938 and took final vows in the Congregation of St. Joseph in 1941, after which she took the name Sister Mary Henrita Deneke.

Mom began to attend nursing school at St. Margaret's Hospital in 1938, and she was awarded a diploma in 1944. A portion of that time was spent as a nursing assistant at a munitions factory near Kansas City KS. With her freshly awarded diploma, she returned to Beloit and worked at Community Hospital. Aunt Nora once said that Mom confided in her about a fear of remaining unmarried and had asked Nora, "Should I marry just for the security of it, if someone comes along, whether I love him or not?" 

Jimmy and Tommy Kohn, early 1952

Aunt Nora offered no insight on how they met, but Mom and Dad did marry in early 1947. Mom and Dad first lived in Downs KS, near where Dad worked. Mom commuted 25 miles each way to Beloit Community Hospital. My brother Jimmy was born in November 1948, and that was likely a reason for Mom to become a full-time housewife and mother. They purchased 160 acres in Jewell County (Ionia township (T4S R9W) section 13), about 5 miles northwest of Ionia and about ten miles south of Esbon. I was born in August 1951, and I once discovered that Mom and Dad had begun the process of adopting a child before Mom was pregnant with me.

The farm included a two-story frame house, granary, equipment shed, barn, and a small pond east of the barn. The livestock included at various times about 15 cattle, 10 hogs, 25 sheep, 20 laying hens, usually 2 dogs, several cats, and one pony "Goldie." A small wood of locust trees provided a wind break from the north, and osage and large junipers provided wind breaks west and south of the house. As we grew, Jimmy and I learned some chores, including gathering eggs, feeding and milking cows, shearing sheep, and slopping hogs. We were both too small to help much in the fields, which included alfalfa and small grains as well as pasture. I guess that Dad also rented nearby land for wheat farming, though I don't remember wheat harvest on the farm. A nearby land owner was Frank Kissinger, whose name I vaguely associate with wheat crops. Our nearest neighbors were the Thomas and Dietz families, about a mile to the west.

Jimmy went to the Ionia public school for first through third grades, from autumn 1953 through spring 1956. (The Kansas school system for rural children did not include kindergarten.) When I began school in 1956, we were bused along with neighbor kids to Esbon's public schools. The Ionia school attendance was small enough to place three grades in one classroom of 24 pupils, and the Esbon school placed grades 1 and 2 together for a classroom of about 20 pupils. My first teacher was "Miss Dolores" Holleran.

Mom resumed nursing at Community Hospital after both Jim and I were in school. I remember summers when Dad would take us to the public swimming pool in Beloit, and then we would pick up Mom at the end of her 7 a.m.-to-3 p.m. shift at the hospital. I also remember a couple of winters when she got stuck in snow drifts on the way home from work. It turned out that the 30-mile commute to Beloit was too strenuous, and Mom and Dad decided to forsake their farm life for "the city." They arranged for an auction of the whole farm to occur in summer 1959. The house sold separately, and it was lifted from its foundation and moved to Ionia. (I found the house there in 2001, long uninhabited and rotted through with a termite infestation. A return visit in 2014 found the same property empty, and the town itself deserted but for a dozen families.)

We moved to Beloit in time to enroll Jimmy and me in St. John's Catholic School for Jim's 7th grade and my 4th grade. My class was one of the largest for many years—33 classmates, give or take a few each year. I don't remember my 4th-grade teacher, but Mrs. Golda Poelma taught 5th grade. Each school day began with assembly for Mass in the large, stone parish church. I had begun to develop a deep religiosity, and this likely resulted from —or furthered— an estrangement from my new classmates. My mother and at least the two aunts who were nuns in the Congretation of St. Joseph (Sisters Henrita (Cecilia) Deneke and Edna Louise (Isabella) Kohn) encouraged this religiosity. I'm sure they would have regretted it had they seen me "celebrating Mass" alone at home in vestments pieced together from sheets and comforters with hand-pressed "hosts" and Coca-Cola "wine." These feelings increased as I was encouraged to learn to serve as an altar boy and subtly shunned from recess team games in which my coordination and strength were insubstantial. Near the end of eighth grade, I asked Monsignor Fraser if he would recommend me for entry to pre-seminary school at St. Fidelis Friary, but he suggested I continue study at the parish high school.

Grandparents

Mike Kohn and Louise Ohnsat,
married 1900.08.13 at St. Boniface, Tipton.

My father's parents lived most of their lives in the Tipton KS area, and as youngsters they lived on farms about a mile apart. Mike Kohn married at 21, and his bride Louise Ohnsat was almost 25. They married 13 August 1900 at St. Boniface in Tipton. Their witnesses were Louise's brother Bernard Ohnsat and Mike's sister Katherine Kohn.

Mike Kohn, age 71.

John Michael Kohn (1879-1965) was born March 18th at his parents' homestead north of Tipton (Carr Creek township, T7S R10W section 25 in Mitchell county). He was their third child, and the second son to survive infancy. He was usually called Mike because his father also had the first name of John.

Sometime between the 1880 census and the birth of Mike's first sister in January 1881, the family moved to La Crosse WI. His uncle Mathias Kohn (1829-1888) had lived there since 1855, and he operated a saloon that included boarding rooms and a restaurant. The Mathias Kohn family had grown to nine children by the time that the John M. Kohn family arrived, another two children came through 1885, and two orphaned children were adopted as well in the 1890s.

Mike's father John M. had a dairy at the eastern edge of La Crosse, and he delivered milk daily to customers in town. I suppose that Mike and his older brother Pete (1877-1941) helped in the barn and herded the milk cows to and from pasture. Mike and Pete likely attended school in La Crosse, and it's possible they attended a Catholic parish school. The family lived in La Crosse until 1887 or 1888, when they moved back to the Tipton, after their mother died from heat stroke in August 1887. Her mother and sister had come from Tipton to help John M with his five children (Peter, age ten; Mike, age eight; Katie, age six; Annie, almost five; and Ben, just turning three). They persuaded John M. that Tipton would make a better home for them, with plenty of land available for ranching and several families of in-laws to help establish a homestead for the family.

Louise Ohnsat-Kohn, age 75.

Louise Ohnsat-Kohn (1875-1959) was born 2 December 1875 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By 1878, the Ohnsat family resettled in Osborne county, about ten miles west of Tipton.

Mike Kohn and Louise Kohn,
50th wedding anniversary (1950) at their Tipton home.

Great Grandparents

John Mathew (John M., Johann Mathias) Kohn (1839-1919)

John M. Kohn, seated right

Susanna Reinert-Kohn, seated left

John M. Kohn family, about 1895, on their ranch farm southwest
of Tipton in Bloom twp, Osborne county KS. l to r: Ben (age 11),
Annie (13), Kate (14), Mike (16), John M (56); Peter (18) is likely
behind the camera.

Susanna Reinert (1848-1887)

Research trip journal, day 6

2014.05.19 Monday

2014.05.20 Tuesday

2014.05.21 Wednesday

2014.05.22 Thursday

2014.05.23 Friday

2014.05.24 Saturday

Down Mill Street

Some of the class mates—Charlotte, Mary, Bear, and Dee.
Click on the photo to see more shots from the parade.

Today had little focus on research. Instead the focus was on Memorial Day and reunion activities. Our small class—bolstered with friends and spouses—was to ride a trailer in the Memorial Day parade. We met at 5th Street, set up chairs on the trailer, and jabbered with each other until we saw the parade start down Mill Street, jalopies and vintage cars in front. It didn't take long. After all, the parade route was seven blocks down Mill Street and a yo-yo back up seven blocks on Hersey Street.

After the parade, we headed to the high school to decorate our table for the evening banquet. Hardly anything more fancy than a framed class slogan Here you see us mighty fine; We're the class of Sixty-Nine. 

Decoration Day Memories

While most class members headed to a city-provided lunch at Chautauqua Park, I visited my parents' graves at St. John Cemetery and planted a group of four perennials—a white and pink peony, blue cone flowers, a hardy yellow geranium, and coreopsis. To avoid the plantings being mowed over, I planted the group between the Kohn headstone and the neighboring headstone for the Byrd family. I had bought the plants in the spirit of a continuing memorial from their three sons—Jim, Chuck as a son-in-law, and me.

My brother Jim as often expressed a wish to be buried here, reminding me that dad had bought a plot with four burial places. I want to support Jim's wishes, and will do so if he dies before me. I believe Chuck would also follow his wishes. But for Chuck and me, I'm more inclined toward other arrangements. First, because I feel a much stronger bond to him and want to arrange my burial to fit with his plans; Second, because I feel no spiritual connection to the Catholic religion and wish not to place my executor in the position of being prevented from burial in their "consecrated ground;" Third, because I wish my body to provide as many organs as possible for others' use and that the remains be cremated. I doubt that I may visit this cemetery again until Jim's interment, although I think now that I may return to celebrate the 50th class reunion.

Before I could feel complete about visiting the cemetery, I went up the road to Elmwood Cemetery and looked for the grave of a buddy from Boy Scouts and high school years. Bruce Houghton was my first crush. He was a year younger than I and a hard-partying boy. Both his parents were alcoholic, too caught up in their own problems to raise their three children well. Bruce was on his way to follow their example until one night in his seventeenth year, when he crashed his car on a country road, likely under the influence of both drugs and drink.

Trip to Glen Elder and Ionia

Barbara (Heeler) and Frank Bulthaup
at the Wakonda Marina's retail counter, 2014

The next reunion events weren't scheduled until the evening, so I stopped by to see Greg Wagner, another buddy from Boy Scouts and high school years. After a short visit, I headed to Waconda Lake and visited some with Frank Bulthaup. Frank also was in Boy Scouts with us, but he's also a second cousin to me through my father's mother. Frank was at work, owner of the only marina at the lake. I had luck in the timing of my visit on a holiday weekend, since the weather was threatening thunderstorms all day.

Afterward, already half the way there, I drove to Ionia and then to the farmland that was home for my first ten years. The house had been moved to Ionia in 1960. I had seen there it about a dozen years ago. I had gone through the two-story frame house, although it was thoroughly infested with termites. Now it is even gone from its momentary rest in Ionia.

Reunion Banquet

After a nap, I was ready for a reunion evening. I had skipped going to Mass at St. John the Baptist church. No longer a believer, no longer interested in following along with the crossings, the mumblings, the standing and kneeling and standing and sitting and kneeling and standing again. More interested, finally, in honestly facing and stating a comfortable atheist system.

For the years I went to St. John's grade school and high school, every school day was begun with a quick Mass. Going to communion was encouraged, and with few exceptions, I was a daily communicant. —I was encouraged in this devotion by my mother, two aunts who were nuns, and most other aunts too, who were proud to see in me a potential vocation to the priesthood. Beyond their comprehension, and beyond mine too through about age 14, was another reason I expressed little interest in dating girls and a certain joy in dressing well, even sometimes "dressing up."— Every morning, kids brought a lunch pail for eating breakfast after Mass, and the first thirty minutes in the classroom were given over to eating breakfast and settling down for the day's instruction. My favorite breakfast included a thermos of either cream of tomato soup or a hearty tomato juice.

By eighth grade, I had been given the nickname "T.J." The name had two origins, though members of my class typically knew only this one: It referred to my breakfast of tomato juice and happened to be an incorrect guess at the initials of my given names, Thomas Gerard. Most boys in my class knew another origin. I tried hard to fit in with the boys in my class, even though we all knew some difference had fostered in me a devotion to music, a religious fervor, an artistic ability, an ability to develop friendships with girls more readily than boys. Once I confided to Bill Wendell, likely not convincingly, that I had gone on some date and had reached what we thought of as Second Base. I told Bill that "Barbara had let me give her a tit job." The boast quickly transformed to my nickname, once Bill had trumpeted the quote to other boys in the locker room.

Click on this image to see additional photos from the banquest.

I was among the first to the social hour and banquet in the school gym. Nine long tables had been set up as emanating spokes from a long table at the hub, where the class members celebrating their 50th reunion would sit. A few people milled about the various tables, setting down personal items as place holders. I place my camera case on a chair opposite Bear Sahlfeld and near Deb Kolarik-Halepeska.

Opposite the hub was a bar, which attracted larger numbers of people. The bar stock had few name brand liquors and wine-in-a-box, your choice of white or red. We had an hour of socializing, where I found the leaden concept of the class reunion banquet. During high school, we studied several subjects in classes that intermixed students from the year before and after ours. We had friends who had escaped the limitations of a small parochial school to attend Beloit High School, which was roughly four times larger than St. John's. (The class of '69 was relatively large at 32 graduates. The class of '14 has only 7 graduates!) We never had seen members of the classes of '64 and '74 in high school, but here they were, celebrating their 50th and 40th reunions along with us celebrating our 45th. I missed classmates from the classes of '68 and '70! I missed, too, the contemporaries I spent free time with, though they attended the public schools.

The bar stock had been predictive of the banquet's menu. The Ladies' Guild had worked yesterday and today to prepare a meal that was served in the same style as we had grown accustomed to in the high school cafeteria. Each diner picks a plate, table ware, and napkin from stacks at the end of a long, long table. Then, passing each member of the Ladies' Guild, the "lady" reaches into an electric roasting pan and serves a component of the meal. Salisbury steak! Scalloped potatoes! Steamed corn! Dinner roll! Margarine patty! Chocolate pan cake! Yum. The only missing items were the cooks' limp, white uniforms and hair nets.

And food fights. Back at our table, we were well-behaved. We conversed well and with interest as people we seldom spoke with in high school told us of the mundane and interesting parts of their lives. Most of us nearing retirement, or already out of the workforce, have the chance to become what we are comfortable with or to find new adventures and challenges.

The evening closed with a strange monologue from John Bergman, class of 1964. He sought to bullet-point the lives of each of his classmates, but often the result was a reminder of early marriage, unpromising work, several kids, and numerous grand-kids. Dee grumbled, Seems they need to get off this great family thing. Bear laughed, Next year we'll say 'And four of us are gay. It's time to look away from the Catholic education (limited) and toward the real world.' Charlotte giggled, And a few of us have three family names—the two husbands' children's names and our freshly independent name. Deb offered, And why this monolog about the Bergmans and their donations to "the Fund"? Is this really just a donations grab? She had recognized the tone shift. The Alumni Director rose to encourage donations to the endowment and then to introduce the winning basketball coach and his team. Every pump of a young athlete's ability was a chance to point at the donation plates.

After the banquet, many alumni filled the Knights of Columbus hall for more conversation. The thumping of a country blues band at Down Under bled through the walls. But I had misunderstood the directions and ended up at Down Under, looking for classmates. When I realized I knew nobody in the crowd, I headed back to Jewell for the night.

2014.05.25 Sunday

2014.05.26 Monday

2014.05.27 Tuesday

2014.05.28 Wednesday

2014.05.29 Thursday

2014.05.30 Friday